The purpose of this blog is to provide analytical commentary on formal and informal labour organisations and their attempts to resist ever more brutal forms of exploitation in today’s neo-liberal, global capitalism.

Sunday, 21 August 2016

Fighting for the heart and soul of Labour!

The Labour Party is currently embroiled
in a bitter internal struggle over the election of its next leader. While the
challenger Owen Smith enjoys the predominant support of the Labour MPs in
Parliament as well as the party establishment, the vast majorities of
constituencies and individual labour members endorse Jeremy Corbyn. Critics of
Corbyn argue that he lacks the necessary leadership qualities, visible in his allegedly
weak role in the EU referendum, and is unable to ensure a victory by the Labour
Party against the Conservatives in the next general elections. In this blog
post, I will argue that this kind of criticism misunderstands completely what the
current movement around Jeremy Corbyn is about.

A
different kind of leadership

The general expectation in liberal
representative, parliamentary politics is a focus on ‘a strong leader, who can
deliver’. A leader is expected to tell others what they should do with the
leader determining, together with a small group of advisers, the most important
policies of the party and, when in power, the policies of the government. This
understanding of leader is closely related to the institutional set-up of the
British state. As Hilary Wainwright has recently succinctly put, ‘the “strong
man” notion of leadership by which Jeremy Corbyn appears all too often to be
judged is not just a matter of a “macho” style (though a strong feminist
influence would help in any radical rethinking of leadership). It is embedded
in the nature of theUK's unwritten
constitution and
the immense but opaque power that it gives to the executive: extensive powers
of patronage, powers to go to war, be ready to press the nuclear button, to be
at the table of the UN Security Council and NATO, and in many ways preserve the
continuity of the British state’ (Socialist
Project • E-Bulletin No. 1282; July 19, 2016).

Jeremy Corbyn is clearly different. Soft-spoken,
principled, always prepared to listen to others, he refrains from
commanding others what they should do. What is often described as an inability
to organise a well structured opposition is parliament is in fact the result
of facilitating the participation of others in decision-making. Empowering
people to become political agents is key to understanding this different kind
of leadership. Although a long-time serving MP for the Labour Party, Corbyn has
never been part of the Westminster establishment. Rather, he has been much more
closely aligned with a new type of politics based on social movements such as the
CND and their emphasis on activities outside Parliament and the surrounding
lobbying activities.

A
new type of politics

Traditional liberal democratic
policy-making has been increasingly challenged across Europe and the wider
world. Whether expressed in the Occupy movement, the grassroots movements in
Greece resulting in the election of the Syriza government in January 2015 or the
Indignados movement in Spain and their challenge of austerity policies, people
have increasingly turned their backs to traditional politics and started to
organise separately from the bottom up. In the UK, the movement behind the
leadership election of Jeremy Corbyn in the summer of 2015 is the expression of
this new type of politics (see Corbyn’s
Campaign: The story of a remarkable summer).

Within traditional politics, the role of
individual party members is secondary. Disregarded in general discussions of
policy formulation, members are mainly mobilised around election times to
campaign for the party. As I witnessed myself in Nottingham, the election of Jeremy
Corbyn has resulted in a fundamental transformation of local Labour Party branches.
Once disenchanted by the way they were side-lined by the party leadership in
London, now members have started to attend local meetings in large numbers participating
in concrete policy discussions not only about local issues, but also general
national policies. If they continue to support Corbyn despite the revolt by MPs
and the party establishment, it is not because they are part of some kind of ‘Corbyn
fanclub’, as some have alleged. It is because they realise that a victory by
Owen Smith would imply a return to the old days (see The
Corbyn Factor: What does it mean in practice?).

David Graeber, a long-time activist and
observer of this new type of bottom-up democratic politics, points out that
traditionally members of new social movements have avoided political parties.
Whether on the left or on the right of the political spectrum, they were all
regarded as part of a political establishment having been complicit in
maintaining the existing system characterised by continuing austerity and
increasing levels of inequality. ‘It was our
strong conviction that real, direct democracy, could never be created inside
the structures of government. One had to open up a space outside. The
Corbynistas are trying to prove us wrong’ (The Guardian, 5 July 2016).

In turn, it is not surprising that Labour
MPs are opposed to this kind of new politics. The reason for their opposition
to Corbyn is not that he is not electable. As Wainwright correctly points out, ‘electability
in the context of today's anti-establishment consciousness requires radical
political reform and the alliances to achieve it, not an obsession with being
an establishment in waiting’ (Socialist Project •
E-Bulletin No. 1282; July 19, 2016).Jeremy Corbyn offers precisely this. Labour MPs, however, clinging to the traditional, old system of policy-making, feel
threatened by this new type of politics, which undermines their privileged
position in the political system and the way things have been done.

As Graeber asserts, ‘if the opposition to Jeremy Corbynfor the past nine months has been so
fierce, and so bitter, it is because his existence as head of a major political
party is an assault on the very notion that politics should be primarily about
the personal qualities of politicians. It’s an attempt to change the rules of
the game, and those who object most violently to the Labour leadership are
precisely those who would lose the most personal power were it to be
successful: sitting politicians and political commentators’ (The Guardian, 5 July 2016).

A focus on anti-austerity and social justice

Importantly, this new
politics expressed in the movement around Corbyn is not simply about a new form
of policy-making. It has concrete contents expressed in clear anti-austerity
policies, anti-Trident renewal and a general focus on issues of social and
global justice. When the welfare bill was voted on in July 2015, Jeremy Corbyn
was the only leadership candidate at the time, who rebelled against interim
party leader Harriet Harman’s recommendation to abstain (The Guardian, 21 July 2015).

It is this clear
anti-austerity, pro-social justice position, together with the new type of
politics, which continues to ensure such broad support for Corbyn amongst
Labour Party members and beyond. Long may it last!

1 comment:

A great blog! The Labour Party membership in the constituency where I live has tripled and generally is buzzing with activity to support Jeremy (admittedly I live in Islington North, but I don't think we're unique!), although 100 people did vote against him (284 in favour of JC) at our local nomination meeting. It is apparent that the political establishment, however aware it may be of voters' lack of trust in feeling of connection to it, is running scared of the prospect of a senior politician who has actually gained the public's respect and trust by voicing policies and beliefs that run counter to the neo-liberal economic model existing in the UK. Interesting times.